ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of people clashed with members of a remote animist tribe in Pakistan's north Thursday after a teenager claimed she was forced to convert to Islam, police and residents said, bringing violence to a previously peaceful part of the country.

Police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd attacking a house in the Kalash tribe’s valley of Bumburate in the northwestern district of Chitral, where the girl had gone to give a police statement about her conversion, said Kalash activist Luke Rehmat.

The Kalash, Pakistan’s smallest religious minority, celebrate their gods through music and dance — an anomaly in Pakistan.

They number only around 4,000, according to Rehmat. Increasingly their youth are converting to Islam, prompting activists to campaign to preserve the traditions of the ancient, diminishing tribe.

The teenager had “returned to her home saying embracing Islam was a mistake and she wanted to live with her family, which infuriated the Muslim community,” Rehmat said.

She went to a neighbour’s house to speak to police, the home’s owner told AFP, but hundreds of people began to gather outside as word spread through the close-knit community.

“The Kalash community had also gathered to save the family and when the Muslims chanting slogans attacked the house with sticks and pelted stones everybody was running for their lives,” Rehmat, who was out of breath from fleeing the scene, told AFP by telephone.

“Dozens” were injured, he said, though apparently none seriously.

“Law enforcement agencies reached here on time otherwise they would have killed all of us,” said local Kalash politician Imran Kabeer.

It was not clear what happened to the teenager.

Police in the city of Chitral said the district police chief had gone to Bumburate with other senior officers, adding that the situation was under control.

The owner of the house that was attacked was also in Chitral, where he said police were refusing to let him return home.

“They came out in a mob to attack my house and to kill my wife and my children,” he said, asking to remain anonymous.

“They threw stones at the roof and at the windows. Police were firing in the air.”

Chitral, a northern district of the troubled Khyber Pukhtunkwa (KP) province, has long attracted tourists for its beauty and has hitherto been notable for having been spared the country’s violence.

The call is in response to a petition on the White House website that was launched after the death of 17-year-old Leelah Alcorn, a transgender youth who committed suicide in December.

In a note posted online before her death, Alcorn wrote about being forced to undergo conversion therapy by her parents.

Obama said young people must be given the right to choose and live safely regardless of sexual orientation.

“Tonight, somewhere in America, a young person, let’s say a young man, will struggle to fall to sleep, wrestling alone with a secret he’s held as long as he can remember,” Obama said in a statement Wednesday.

“What happens next depends on him, his family, as well as his friends and his teachers and his community. But it also depends on us — on the kind of society we engender, the kind of future we build.”

The online petition has received more than 120,000 signatures in the past three months.

Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to Obama said the therapy, also called “reparative” treatment, are morally and medically damaging.

“The overwhelming scientific evidence demonstrates that conversion therapy, especially when it is practiced on young people, is neither medically nor ethically appropriate and can cause substantial harm,” Jarrett said in a statement.

“As part of our dedication to protecting America’s youth, this administration supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors.”

Obama has been a vocal supporter of gay rights, both on US soil and abroad and is the first US president to come out in support of same-sex marriage. – AFP

AHMEDABAD: Hardline Hindu groups came under fire Sunday after some 200 Christians were converted in the Indian prime minister's home state, amid increasing concern at the right-wing government's perceived pro-Hindu tilt.

The radical Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council) said it converted Christian tribal people to their original Hindu faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s western home state of Gujarat late Saturday.

The mass event drew widespread criticism from Christian groups and Modi’s political opponents on Sunday. They accused radical organisations linked to Modi’s ruling party, like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), of forcing or enticing religious minorities to convert to Hinduism.

“Extreme right wing is flexing its muscles. VHP/RSS through Hindutatva (“Hinduness”) … rewriting history and economic policies,” Digvijay Singh, a leader of the opposition Congress party, posted on Twitter early Sunday.

A Gujarat-based priest said he could not “accept that anyone who has been a Christian will convert to other religion by personal choice”.

“VHP is forcing people and luring them to convert their religion,” Father Dominic was quoted as saying by Zee News channel’s website.

Saturday’s mass ceremony took place in a tribal village 350 kilometres (215 miles) south of the state capital Ahmedabad.

It happened hours after Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological mentor RSS called for a new law to ban “forced religious conversions”.

“Over 200 people were asked to throw their religious pendants in a holy fire and were given new pendants with the image of (Hindu) Lord Rama,” Ajit Solanki, a Gujarat state VHP secretary, told AFP.

Solanki however denied using any kind of force or monetary promises, maintaining that the conversions were voluntary.

The world’s most populous democracy is a secular country under the constitution and religious freedom is considered a fundamental right.

The issue of mass conversions has paralysed India’s parliament, with opposition lawmakers demanding Modi make a statement on earlier reports of poor Muslims being coerced into Hinduism.

A hardline group linked to the BJP was accused of converting some 50 slum-dwelling Muslim families about a week ago in the Taj Mahal city of Agra.

One of the converts told AFP they were promised ration cards and other financial incentives if they switched religions.

Critics say Hindu hardline groups have become emboldened since the BJP was elected, promoting a Hindu-dominant agenda.

Modi, who spent his early years in the RSS, has made no comment on religious issues since becoming premier.

He was himself accused of failing to curb 2002 anti-Muslim riots that claimed at least 1,000 lives when he was chief minister of Gujarat.

He has always rejected the accusations and India’s Supreme Court found no evidence to prosecute him.

India is 80 percent Hindu while Muslims make up 13.4 percent of the 1.2 billion population. Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs and other religions account for the rest. – AFP

NEW DELHI: Indian Hindu groups are luring poor Muslims to convert with offers of cheap food, opposition politicians said on Wednesday, accusing the groups of a "diabolical agenda" to undermine religious diversity.

Religious conversions have become a lightning rod in recent months with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rivals demanding that he rein in religious groups affiliated to his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) trying promote a Hindu-dominant agenda.

About 250 Muslim slum-dwellers changed their faith at a ceremony in the city of Agra this week. But police registered a case on Tuesday after several of those who converted said they had been misled.

They were offered government identity cards showing them to be below the poverty line and thus entitled to cheap supplies of the staples wheat and rice.

Opposition members of parliament criticized the conversions, saying the ruling party was chipping away at India’s secular constitution.

“This house must be assured the constitution of India will not be violated,” Anand Sharma, leader of the opposition Congress party told parliament.

Members of the Muslim community stage a protest against alleged forced conversion of 300 people, in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, on Wednesday.

“There is a diabolical agenda.”

Hindu organizations stir unease among India’s minority Muslims who accuse them of a deep-seated bias and say they have become more assertive since the rise to power of the Hindu-nationalist BJP in a stunning election victory this year.

Government minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the opposition critics must allow the police investigation to go ahead and should not jump to conclusions.

“We are as committed to the cause of secularism as anyone else,” he said.

Parliament was paralyzed for most of last week after a government minister made derogatory remarks about non-Hindus. Modi rejected demands he fire her, saying she had made a public apology. – Reuters

Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said the Sunni militants had also buried alive some of their victims, including women and children. Some 300 women were kidnapped as slaves, he added.

“We have striking evidence obtained from Yazidis fleeing Sinjar and some who escaped death, and also crime scene images that show indisputably that the gangs of the Islamic States have executed at least 500 Yazidis after seizing Sinjar,” Sudani told Reuters.

Sinjar is the ancient home of the Yazidis, one of the towns captured by the Sunni militants who view the community as “devil worshipers”.

“Some of the victims, including women and children were buried alive in scattered mass graves in and around Sinjar,” Sudani said.

The Islamic State, which has declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria, has prompted tens of thousands of Yazidis and Christians to flee for their lives during their push to within a 30-minute drive of the Kurdish regional capital Arbil.

The Yazidis, followers of an ancient religion derived from Zoroastrianism, are spread over northern Iraq and are part of the country’s Kurdish minority.

A deadline passed at midday on Sunday for 300 Yazidi families to convert to Islam or face death at the hands of the Islamic State. It was not immediately clear whether the Iraqi minister was talking about the fate of those families or others in the conflict.

The militant group, which arrived in northern Iraq in June, has routed Kurds in its latest advance, seizing several towns, a fifth oilfield and Iraq’s biggest dam – possibly gaining the ability to flood cities and cut off water and power supplies. (Reuters)